I am yet to figure out people who seek me out to list out their problem areas. I don’t say anything new. I don’t take their side and am even brutally honest. I don’t offer any ‘value add’. Why me, I always wonder.

‘They’ specially make plans.. to meet and the proceed to vomit out their woes and go their way. I end the evening figuring out why I agreed (for some strange fangled notion that we are friends perhaps) and why do I go back heavier (figuratively only ) as compared to when I started.

Yes there is a lot of talk about being able to listen.. but do people actually listen? They may hear what you are saying but are they listening? “How are you?”, “How is life?”, “How is job?” — all these questions are asked but nobody waits for an answer. So after a while you realise that and don’t even expect a pause. These people just carry on. They don’t even need encouraging words or appropriate responses.

‘They’ are worried about not making enough money. About staying single all their lives. About not getting what they want when they want it. They are worried life isn’t panning out as they had planned it. Me too, you want to chime in but maybe next time you’ll say it.

It’s a group of 4 and there is one.. who is actually listening to you. He asks you and expectantly sits back. You drop the bomb. You are quitting or You have found some one or something just as trivial between friends or just as important as developments go. Then ‘they’ get up and demand why they weren’t told earlier. ‘I thought I was your best friend?’ they say.

I’ve had a debate for a while with people about happiness and whether it’s just being or a conscious state of being. And, unsurprisingly, there is a lot in the public sphere that get’s printed about how or what is happiness.

I came across this piece in Friday’s HT. It’s a viewpoint… if nothing else.

INNER VOICE – Happiness, a bit far-fetched

ENGLISH POET Rupert Brooke wrote: “A young Apollo, golden-haired/Stands dreaming on the brink of strife/Magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life.”

So “What is the big dream in your life?” I asked my class of undergraduate second year students at IIT Madras. The ‘young Apollos’ gave me these responses: “a genius the world will never forget,” “a world-famous academician,” “a billionaire in Silicon Valley,” “the CEO of a giant MNC,” and so on. But what happens when the big dream gets fulfilled, when you get rich and famous? Will you attain an enduring state of fulfillment? Will you then be able to live happily ever after?

Is there not a deep truth in the saying of Jesus: “For what does it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” The dreams of our best and brightest students are ones that have been consciously and unconsciously ingrained in them by their parents and teachers. Their dreams are but a reflection of the prevailing worldview.

As a professor of structural engineering, I wonder if this is the best our education has to offer today and want to build up a strong case for thinking beyond competitive performance. Every accomplishment brings us some sense of fulfillment, but this does not linger long. At no point can one stop and feel: “Yes, at last I have found enduring happiness.”

We all have different reasons to feel depressed. The mind has its own mechanics and won’t obey the cold logic of reason. We have the dubious distinction of undergoing untold suffering, including boredom, caused by our own minds. Wise men have suggested that this discontent is nature’s way of saying, “Something’s wrong with you,” and enabling us to awake to a higher consciousness.